Tuesday, July 12, 2005
in the country of the blind, the one-eyed is king
hummm...here's an interesting spin on this whole thing. st. nick is fond of brandishing his "bind man" parable, we all know the story, so i won't repeat it here. anyway, i'd just like to point out a chink in the intellectual armor.
here goes: while most of the "blind men" (marxy, myself, and a few thousand others out there) who are, in an effort to try and understand japan as deeply as possible, trying to use ALL of our various "intelligences"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences
nick, on the other hand, has WILLINGLY discarded one of his "intelligences" (verbal-linguistic) and then in an effort to justify this, frequenty questions the "merits" of our "linguistic understandings" of japan.
the problem with this is, by focusing on the relative merits of his virtually senseless ("sans-sense") position, he implies that we AREN'T employing all of our other senses too! well, OF COURSE WE ARE! we are feeling, touching, tasting, smelling, etc. the "sensory" japan just as much as he is, if not more since we are here 24/7 and he is not.
of course, the next logical step for nick at this point, if he wan't to spend his time and energy to salvage this line of reasoning, is to concede my point, and then argue that he is simply more "intelligent" in the sensory areas that he has decided to focus on. this is a moot point, and i will not argue it here.
now if nick were somehow an idiot savant, and were INCAPABLE of speaking another language, or even his native one, then his position would be forgivable. even though his statements sometimes make me up this into question, i'm convinced he is in full possession of his mental faculties. therefore, no sympathy for him, and his whole intellectual edifice build around this parable as a kind of post-modern excuse is a complete sham.
imagine an astrophysicist who decided to throw away his "logical-mathematical intelligence" and decided to focus on exploring the chemical structure of stars with his "body-kinesthetic
intelligence"...or to put things another way: i'm sure IF stephen hawking were CAPABLE of doing just this, he would. sadly, he can't.
nick can no longer make use of this excuse, thank goodness.
now i'm off. bigger "pakura" to fry...
hi-five,
r.
http://glitchslaptko.blogspot.com/
-----------------------------
BONUS PHOTO!!!
THE KING WITH ONE EYE
here goes: while most of the "blind men" (marxy, myself, and a few thousand others out there) who are, in an effort to try and understand japan as deeply as possible, trying to use ALL of our various "intelligences"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences
nick, on the other hand, has WILLINGLY discarded one of his "intelligences" (verbal-linguistic) and then in an effort to justify this, frequenty questions the "merits" of our "linguistic understandings" of japan.
the problem with this is, by focusing on the relative merits of his virtually senseless ("sans-sense") position, he implies that we AREN'T employing all of our other senses too! well, OF COURSE WE ARE! we are feeling, touching, tasting, smelling, etc. the "sensory" japan just as much as he is, if not more since we are here 24/7 and he is not.
of course, the next logical step for nick at this point, if he wan't to spend his time and energy to salvage this line of reasoning, is to concede my point, and then argue that he is simply more "intelligent" in the sensory areas that he has decided to focus on. this is a moot point, and i will not argue it here.
now if nick were somehow an idiot savant, and were INCAPABLE of speaking another language, or even his native one, then his position would be forgivable. even though his statements sometimes make me up this into question, i'm convinced he is in full possession of his mental faculties. therefore, no sympathy for him, and his whole intellectual edifice build around this parable as a kind of post-modern excuse is a complete sham.
imagine an astrophysicist who decided to throw away his "logical-mathematical intelligence" and decided to focus on exploring the chemical structure of stars with his "body-kinesthetic
intelligence"...or to put things another way: i'm sure IF stephen hawking were CAPABLE of doing just this, he would. sadly, he can't.
nick can no longer make use of this excuse, thank goodness.
now i'm off. bigger "pakura" to fry...
hi-five,
r.
http://glitchslaptko.blogspot.com/
-----------------------------
BONUS PHOTO!!!
THE KING WITH ONE EYE
